


don't bring me down

by fakelight



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Super 8 (2011)
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 01, and the tiniest bit of jancy bc i'm me, monster teenz and alien teenz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 01:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16052327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakelight/pseuds/fakelight
Summary: The girl frowns.“Wait, they made you sign stuff? We got out with just sworn statements.”Jonathan’s hands falter on the door handle. He looks up at the girl, who’s holding her own hand out for him to shake.“Sorry, I should have said this first. My name is Alice Dainard, and I’m pretty sure what happened to your brother happened to me too.”





	don't bring me down

There’s a girl leaning against the hood of his car when Jonathan leaves school on a late April Friday afternoon.

“Hi,” she calls to him as his feet stop in their tracks. “Are you Jonathan Byers?”

She’s blonde, around his age, maybe a few years older.

Pretty.

Definitely not from Hawkins.

He doesn’t think the lab hires anyone quite this young, but he wouldn’t put anything past them.

“Yes?” he says, eyeing her warily, offering up nothing more than his name. He doesn’t think he’s done anything questionable, hasn’t told anyone about the monster, or that his brother didn’t actually get lost in the woods. He even avoids the number eleven, sometimes.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you about what happened last November,” she says plainly.

Jonathan looks around for an escape, but apparently taking down his prints took longer than he’d thought, and they’re the only ones in the parking lot.

She smiles at him, encouragingly.

This has to be a trap. The lab making sure that he’s keeping his mouth shut.

“Sorry,” he says, walking quickly to to the driver’s side, unlocking the door. “I can’t talk about it, and I’m pretty sure you know that. So nice try, but I signed all your papers, okay? I know what’s going to happen if I say anything. You don’t need to worry about me.”

The girl frowns.

“Wait, they made you sign stuff? We got out with just sworn statements.”

Jonathan’s hands falter on the door handle. He looks up at the girl, who’s holding her own hand out for him to shake.

“Sorry, I should have said this first. My name is Alice Dainard, and I’m pretty sure what happened to your brother happened to me too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan follows Alice to a diner three towns over, far enough away that he won’t be recognized. When he walks in, he stops in his tracks for the second time that day, because sitting in a booth are two people he doesn’t recognize—two boys, one red-headed, one brown—across from two people he does.

“Hi,” Nancy says as he slides in next to her. Steve nods at him.

“They got you too?” Jonathan asks.

“Their story was pretty compelling. And they said you were already in.” Nancy purses her lips. “But I told them we can’t talk about it.”

“Yeah,” the guy on the left—brown hair—says, speaking for the first time. “But just hear us out, okay?” He looks up as Alice sits primly on the edge of the booth next to him, smiling at her out of the side of his mouth.

“I think I scared the shit out of this one,” she nods toward Jonathan. “He thought I was trying to get him to slip up, admit what he saw.”

Jonathan feels himself going red, and he busies himself with rearranging the silverware in front of him.

“You realize that is exactly what we’re trying to do,” the other boy says, looking at Alice from under hooded lids. Alice rolls her eyes.

“Okay, we’re all here. Who are you? Why do you want to talk to us? And will you be paying?” Steve asks, rapid-fire.

Alice laughs. “I’m Alice, this is Joe,” the brown-haired boy throws a wave at them, “and Charles. I think we can handle the check, we did kind of ambush you here.”

The red-haired boy—Charles—coughs. “I wouldn’t say ambush. We were very polite.”

Nancy narrows her eyes. “You told us we better come with you if we wanted to find out more about the thing that attacked us—a thing I am not confirming attacked us or not.”

Alice gives Charles a disapproving look.

Charles has the good sense to look guilty.

“Look,” Joe says. “We heard about you from my dad, he knows the Chief from your town, Jim Hopper? When we were kids, god, almost five years ago now, something happened to us. He said we should talk to you. Compare stories. See if it’s back.”

“It?” Nancy asks.

“Back?” says Steve.

“It’s gone,” Jonathan says, throwing caution to the wind. If they are from the lab, they’re the best actors he’s ever seen for government employees. “It’s dead. Eleven killed it.”

Joe leans forward, looking excited. “Eleven? What’s that? Were there more of them? Is the ship still here?”

“Ship?” Nancy says, confused. “Do you mean gate?”

“What’s a gate?” Charles asks.

“Okay,” Alice says, stopping the overlapping conversations with a pair of outstretched hands. “Start from the beginning.”

Nancy and Steve look at Jonathan expectantly.

He glares at them. “Why do I have to tell it? You were there too.”

“You just said Eleven out loud, dude. You started it, you finish it.” Steve leans back, mouths _coffee_ at the waitress.

Jonathan sighs.

It takes less time than he thought it would to tell the whole story, Will and Eleven and the monster. The Upside Down. Jonathan spoons too much sugar into his coffee, his nerves buzzing at the memories.

“And it was definitely from this place? The Upside Down?” Joe asks.

“Mike—that’s my brother—he said that Eleven, she was the one who opened the gate. And the monster came through,” Nancy says. “So yeah, I guess it was always there. Until it came here.”

Joe looks almost disappointed.

“Not the same?” Jonathan asks.

Alice shakes her head, twisting her mouth wryly. “Ours was an alien. He was being held by scientists. He just wanted to get home.”

Steve laughs, the noise cutting through the hubbub of the diner. “An alien.” He looks around, skepticism written all over his face. The teens on the other side of the table don’t blink. Steve does.

“You’re serious?”

Charles nods at them. “We were shooting a film. There was a train crash. Shut down our town for weeks. Turns out they were transporting something they shouldn’t have.”

“I remember that,” Nancy says suddenly. “It was on the news. Even here.” She blinks, impressed. “That was you guys?”

Charles shrugs, but Jonathan can tell he takes some sort of pride in the recognition.

“You got it on film?” Jonathan asks, his curiosity piqued.

“It was blurry, but yeah.” Charles sighs, wistfully. “They took it, obviously.”

“We have this,” Nancy says, pulling their own blurry shot of the monster out of her bag. Joe drags it across the table, the three of them huddling around the tiny scrap of proof.

Jonathan stares. “You carry that around with you?” he whispers to Nancy, who shushes him, her face pink.

“Definitely not the same, too small,” Alice says, as Joe states, “Not enough arms.”

“Arms?”

“There’s only two.”

Jonathan shudders. He can’t imagine how quickly they would have all died if the Demogorgon had had more than two arms.

“You said what happened to my brother happened to you,” he directs toward Alice, who looks up from the photograph.

Joe tilts his head toward her, looking concerned.

“It’s fine,” she tells Joe, turning back to Jonathan. “It took me. Just for a little while, but it was, um, taking people from the town. For food. We were all strung up in cocoons. I don’t actually remember anything from while I was in there, I only know what they told me afterward. Joe and our friend, they got me out. It had to rebuild its ship. So it did. And then it left.”

“Where did it take you?” Nancy almost manages to sound detached, but Jonathan can hear the tremor in her voice that means she’s remembering the tree.

“Under the graveyard, it made this sort of cavern. It took all the metal from town, too.”

“And it took people, as in, more than just you?”

“Yeah, a bunch. For you, was it just Will?”

“No,” Jonathan says quickly, before Nancy has to answer. “Nancy’s friend. Some hunters. But Will, he’s the only one alive. My mom and the Chief, they went in after him. They got him out.”

“And he’s—he’s okay?” Alice asks.

Jonathan nods. “Yeah, he’s . . . getting there.” He can feel Steve and Nancy watching him.

“That’s good,” Alice says. “It took me a while. These guys . . . they helped. A little.”

“Thanks,” Joe mutters, sarcastic.

Alice elbows him, smiling.

Charles inhales, leaning forward, and Jonathan finds himself mirroring him, instinctively. “The most important question.” He pauses, for what seems like effect. “Has it come back?”

“Yours came _back_?” Steve asks, his voice betraying his forced calm.

Joe shakes his head. “No. But . . . we thought it might have. When we heard about you.”

“What would you do?” Jonathan finds himself saying. “If it came back.”

“I don’t know,” Joe replies. “What would you do?”

“Kill it,” Nancy says, grim.

 

 

 

Once the monster-hunting tips have been shared (“Bear traps. Get more than one.” “Firecrackers are a pretty good distraction.”), and the disco fries consumed, they begin to disperse, with good luck wishes all around.

“Hey,” Alice calls, and he nods for Steve and Nancy to go ahead, Nancy looking over her shoulder as they keep walking, from curiosity or concern, he can’t quite tell.

She reaches into Jonathan’s bag, pulling out one of his notebooks, one of his pens. “In case your brother needs to talk to someone who understands,” she says, scribbling on the last page, all the way in the back. “It can be hard. Surviving.”

Jonathan doesn’t know what to say to that, taking his notebook back from Alice wordlessly. She smiles at him.

“It’s going to be okay though, I promise. I made it. So will he.”

He exhales. “I hope so.”

“What’s the deal with your friend?” Alice asks, changing the subject, her eyes flicking to Steve with a confused expression on her face. “I know why you were involved, and Nancy, with her brother . . . but what about him?”

“He . . . ” Jonathan trails off, trying to find a way to explain Steve. “He showed up. When it mattered.”

Alice raises her eyebrows. “I guess that’s what’s important, huh?”

A shrug is his response.

“It is,” she tells him, and then looks back to where Joe and Charles are waiting. “Joe. He believed, even when no one else did. I wouldn’t be alive without him.” She shrugs. “You know.”

He does.

“Oh and, sorry, again, for ambushing you like that,” Alice says, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Just, well. We had to know.”

“I get it,” Jonathan shrugs. “I would have wanted to know too. Aliens, though. I thought monsters from another dimension were bad enough.”

Alice laughs. “Aliens are easy to believe in. This Upside Down thing, I dunno.”

“It’s real. Trust me. Or I guess, trust Nancy. She’s the only one of us who’s been there.” Jonathan glances over at the girl in question, who’s watching their conversation closely.

“How long have you two been together?” Alice asks, following his gaze.

His eyes snap back to hers. “What? No, we’re not—we’re just friends.”

She blinks. “Oh.” Her gaze flicks to Steve. Jonathan can tell the moment it clicks.

He feels the need to explain more, but for whose benefit he isn’t sure. “It’s—we’re—not like that,” he lies.

“Sure,” Alice smiles, her tone indicating she doesn’t believe anything of the sort. They stand, awkwardly, for a moment.

“So um, thanks,” he says quickly, changing the subject, as she looks back to him. “It was . . . good. I think. To know it wasn’t just us. Even if it wasn’t the same.”

Alice huffs out a small laugh. “Yeah.” She pauses, looking pensive. “Do you think it’ll come back?”

He wants to say no, but that would be a lie. He steels himself, but Alice reads his answer on his face.

“Well, if it does—”

“We’ll let you know,” he promises.

Alice glances back to Joe and Charles once more, and then, surprising him, leans forward and wraps him in a hug. “Don’t be a stranger,” she tells him, and then they’re gone.

Steve raises an eyebrow as he walks over. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Byers.”

Nancy frowns. “What does that mean?”

“He got her number, I saw it happen!”

“For Will,” Jonathan feels the need to explain, even as Nancy flicks her eyes to him, an unreadable expression on her face. “In case he needs someone to talk to.”

Steve smirks. “Uh huh.”

Jonathan shakes his head, as silence overtakes them. “What are you guys still doing here, anyway? You weren’t waiting for me . . . right?” He looks at them sideways.

“Oh,” Steve says, turning red. “About that—“

“They drove us here,” Nancy breaks in. “Can you give us a ride back?”

Jonathan blinks, disbelieving. “You _got into a car_ with them?! They could have been from the lab, they could have been testing you.”

“That’s what I said,” Nancy mutters, as Steve protests, “They said you were meeting us! And,” he gestures in front of him, “here you are.”

Jonathan can’t find any words to respond to that, at least, any words that wouldn’t break the tenuous peace that exists between the three of them, so instead, he shakes his head one more time, exhaling loudly. “Come on,” he says, turning on his heel, not checking to see if they’re following.

They are.

Nancy runs the last few steps to catch up to him, leaving Steve to lope along behind. They walk in silence for a few moments, and then she turns her head to him. “What did she say to you? At the end. It looked . . . serious.”

Jonathan looks at her out of the corner of his eye, noting the concerned expression on her face, his steps slowing as they reach the car. He thinks about making light of the situation, thinks about lying, to spare her—them—the worry, but even as the thought crosses his mind, he knows what a mistake it would be.

They fought the monster together, they can face what’s coming the same way.

“She asked if I thought it would come back,” he tells her, plainly.

Nancy’s face doesn’t change. “And what did you say?”

He gives her the same answer he gave Alice—a look he can tell Nancy understands instantly. Her shoulders square—steeling herself the same way he had—and for a brief instant, he feels like he did all those months ago, knife to his palm, his eyes locked on hers.

“Hey,” Steve says, appearing suddenly beside them, and the moment is gone.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Nancy shakes her head, her gaze lifting up, away. “Nothing. Aliens.”

“Okay, they had to be messing with us, _right_?!” Steve exclaims, as Jonathan unlocks the car.

“After everything we’ve been through, you draw the line at aliens?”

“We didn’t set an alien on fire, we set a _monster_ on fire,” Steve says, sliding into the back seat, his tone exasperated. “Aliens? Really?”

“Aliens are way more likely than opening a door into another dimension, and we know the Upside Down exists,” Nancy points out. “What do you think?” she asks Jonathan, as she closes the door behind her, pulling her seatbelt on.

“I think,” Jonathan says, sliding the key into the ignition, “we should go home.”

He turns the engine over.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set post-S1 because I started writing it post-S1. I'd forgotten about it until I came across it in my gdocs and realized it was much closer to done than I'd realized, so enjoy this brief interlude (and the third part of my unofficial ‘fic titles that start with ‘don’t’’ trilogy) while I work on my other guys. 
> 
> Also, super enjoy the confusion that comes from two characters having the same names as two of the actors, a fact I did not realize until very recently, and far too late to give up on this entirely.
> 
> Title from ELO's [Don't Bring Me Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9nkzaOPP6g).


End file.
